The war is far from over. Just because more people at TMS think that RPI should be freely used amongst any person who runs a stock mud and thinks that they have the best roleplay around doesn't make it true or right.

But whatever, what do I know? I've just been mudding for the past 12 years.

If after 12 years you still think all muds that aren't AFSes are stock muds, then don't expect anyone to give your "experience" any credence. There are 3 month mud n00bs who know more about MUDs than that.

But thank you again for demonstrating the repugnant elitism that pervades and pollutes the whole AFS mud community. "If you aren't one of us, you're a stock mud."

My point is that you are all saying it's okay for stock muds to use the term.

And now we know you aren't even bothering to read anyone else's posts. I don't think anyone has said this, and certainly not "all."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delerak

Even though RPI's are a small niche in the community, they just wanted to be left alone with the term that they originated a decade (or longer) ago.

And everyone else wants to be left alone and not attacked because of how they choose to label their muds, or how someone looking for a mud chooses to label his preferences (which is how this current debate got started). You don't have any problem using the even older term "MUD" when your games are nothing like the actual MUD. So get off your high horse.

You don't get to play the "leave us in peace" card when it is your crowd that launches all the offensives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delerak

The fact that you all just want to blatantly use it doesn't say much about you or your muds.

Again, we see you aren't reading anyone else's posts. How many mud admins here have been arguing this issue because they actually want to use the term for their MUD? My count is zero, though perhaps I missed one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delerak

yet in my mind the best roleplaying you can find is at RPI muds, why?

If you define "best RP" as abusive PK where the small crowd in charge permadeath PKs anyone new who joins into oblivion, then I would agree with you. If you define "best RP" as the small elite crowd in charge forcing everyone new to kiss their butts or have their characters repeatedly deleted via PK, then yes I agree with you. That is not how I define "best RP" though. Some people do definte "best RP" that way, and for them AFS muds are the perfect choice. If they want to bow down and worship 5-10 people for 4+ years so as to not be permadeath PKed, they have a set of AFS muds to choose from and enjoy. But that is a whole other topic entirely, and has nothing to do with this issue. I just didn't want to let you slide in yet another elitist spew without it being challenged.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delerak

This isn't just a personal preference like everyone has been saying in this whole thread. For me from an actor's standpoint I can firmly say that I could never get in-character on stage if people were constantly talking about other things while I was acting (OOC channels),

You say it isn't personal preference, and then your next sentence starts with "For me."

Wake up. That is exactly what it is: personal preference.

As for OOC channels, do you think the other actors and audience members are not occasionally thinking about other things? Their laundry list? The bills they need to pay? That hot guy/chick in row 2? Etc. Every single time you try to argue that one of your PREFERRED FEATURES is inherently and factually "better", someone is able to provide examples of how it is not objectively better, but just your preference.

Preferences are fine. Preferences are great. But please, drop the arrogant belief that your preferences are objectively BETTER than everyone else's.

Obviously people will say they can get in-character no matter what, but until you've seen the differences between RPI muds and the other muds out there you simply can't understand or compare the two.

Dude...again you are off base. By making this wild claim that anything ooc distracts you must get rid of anything non rp in your game. There are no games that are this way. Are you trying to tell me you have no hit point messages, no mail system, no score, nothing that is out of character at all to inform a player of anything?

I'm absolutely sure anyone can go into your game and find a slew of ooc supporting spam that occurs in the game. It is like an actor (and by the way, I've been professionally acting for many years both in as Equity - professional theater and SAG - Professional film) saying that you better get rid of the microphones, lights, camera and even the stage because it isn't real and distracts from being in character.

Come on let's not argue the ooc channel thing again especially when most IRP muds have the option to tune them out thereby giving you a full immersion of Roleplay.

OK, made sure to send myself an email of the log last time I was on the desktop downstairs so I'd be able to access the list later regardless of where I was. Here are the shared characteristics that were found, by myself over the years 2000-2008 and by others in a group study last month, when examining the original RPI MUDs, the games to which the term was first applied and hence in reference to. This is a very short summary of the list since each has further points and elaboration that I don't have time right now to edit into a longer definition. That will be done soon.

1. Strictly enforced in-character behavior (though this is not limited to RPIs alone as RPEs also by definition possess this).

2. No player-accessible global OOC channels.

3. Descriptive, generalized skill aptitude and attributes which prevent any precision in determinating.

4. Mechanics-based world for things like combat, manufacturing items, or understanding (or not) different languages.

5. Enhanced emote system that extends beyond the basic emote command found even in some stock codes.

6. Use-based advancement instead of "experience" or other point-based systems.

7. No experience points system.

8. No levels.

9. No classes as traditionally employed in MUDs which confine what a character can and can not do and which are used to categorize that character.

10. Permanent death. Not "soft" permadeath or other such concepts.

11. Detailed character creation and staff approval before entering game.

12. World design driven code. Each of the RPIs had code which was redesigned to meet their world design, not a world designed to meet the arcade-oriented code.

13. Description-based character identities. No names visible.

14. IC conditional PKing only. Killing for OOC reasons or just for fun limited and has consequences.

15. One character per player at a time: this is one of the things that needed refining since use of accounts has since become fairly standard on nearly all RPIs as a means of enforcing this but account systems were not common to all the founding RPIs when the term came into use (though accounts are now used by both the remaining original RPIs).

16. Objects use descriptions to determine quality or identity (no "Sword of Prof1515").

17. Detailed world design including historical, religious, political etc systems.

18. All rooms have descriptions.

19. No detailed who list. Info from a who command was limited to total online or removed entirely.

From my notes on the discussion and analysis, this seemed to the fairly complete list though a couple were derived from an examination of other discussions in the past and the features analyzed to determine if they did indeed match all the original RPIs. #19 was one such example and while the "no accounts" was disproven through such analysis but the "one character per player" aspect of that argument (#15) was proven to be true.

For my part, the list is the product of examining 900-1000+ MUDs including every Role-Play Enforced and even role-play "encouraged" MUD I could find via TMS and TMC over the course of this decade. I've also looked at various discussions by RPI and non-RPI administrators and players over that period as well for insight into feature characteristics. Finally, I compared the original games that the term RPI was applied to and checked each game against the others to see what characteristics were present in each. I also checked features brought up in discussions against those games as well.

Note that numbering of this list does not represent any value assessment of importance.

Good job. You have just rewound this this thread back to the beginning.

Let the insanity begin!

(Helpful Hint: Those of you interested in posting while saving time and frustration might just go back to page one or two, copy your posts from there, and post them back here again).

No I think we're all done arguing here at TMS. These discussions will most likely be archived and re-posted at other sites such as rpimud.com, mudconnector, or even the RPI muds forums so we can get a take on other perspectives and point of views from different forums.

I'd originally skipped this because I don't spend a lot of time on YouTube. Then I had someone who actually plays Threshold as well as other roleplay enforced games tell me about it because he was offended by the manner in which this video was made.

Delerak, I didn't think badly of you until I saw this video. You really should be ashamed of yourself.

For anyone who sees this video or who doesn't, you'll see Delerek, who has such an obviously biased agenda that he cannot even begin to make an objective video, try to log onto Threshold and "fail miserably".

Delerak logs in to the mud to "give it a fair try".

He immediately begins trashing the mud before he's even entered character creation, discussing how the admin has a problem with RPIs (note that the admins have a problem with term RPI as was discussed in this thread), and how he's thankful that Threshold is not an RPI. (We're very thankful as well!)

He then makes fun of the ease of "getting into the game" when he's only just entered character creation.

He then goes on to mock the fact that there are races and stats on Threshold and all the information is available and "up front".

He continues to mock the "ease of entering the game", though he's still not yet past the first screen of creation.

Notice he states "send in your character application", skips over it and then goes "Stats!"

Then he gets to his "approve me" part, starts reading out loud because he thinks he's making a point, gets to the "send in a character application", and continues to read silently for a bit.

Then he decides he's going to "quit now" before he can cause any further embarrassment to Threshold and his mud. (Read that as before he actually has to enter a character application and embarrasses himself any further.)

Then, he logs on to an RPI mud he obviously knows very well (oops, it's his mud) in order to introduce us to the "depth" of RPI gaming. He goes on to discuss how wonderful this RPI is because it's got 6 races and 3 PC restricted races. (A total of 9 just in case anyone has trouble with math.) Then he goes on to proclaim that Threshold has 20 races. Threshold has 10 races; that would be 1, yes 1, more than his beloved RPI. Considering he JUST tried to create on Threshold less than 10 minutes before he goes to create the races, he's either really bad at math, can't count, has a horrible memory, or is a liar of the worst sort. The rest of the video is pretty boring but funny as all heck as he continues to make assumptions about a game he spent less than 5 minutes on and couldn't get past the first room of creation.

Okay, so basically, I get the message. In order to prove how elite and wonderful RPI muds are, you have to go to a non-RPI mud that doesn't even want to be touched with the term RPI, get to screen 1 of character creation, and then make a video to lie about said mud. If all RPI players are like you (thankfully, they're not), I hope the stay the hell away from any mud I ever work on or play on.

You obviously missed out on the fact that Threshold is description based character interaction. Too bad you never got that far since you couldn't manage to get out of room 1 of creation.

Okay, now that I've got that flame out of the way, I've got to also say thank you.

After I got over the initial outrage due to your flat out lies and propaganda, I just had to laugh... a lot. You managed to show that Threshold was easy to use. Your video showed that you weren't expecting a lot of the things you found, which caused long pauses when you were reading to yourself instead of out loud. And ultimately, I haven't seen a video this pathetically funny since "Pharoah Out".

In the end, you made AFS muds look like they cater to a bunch of lying, disrespectful, anal retentive morons who are so biased and ignorant that they can't remember how many races they saw on a screen not even ten minutes prior. I feel bad for them that this video is out there representing them, but I'm adding it to my bookmark so that I have something to entertain myself with when I run into twinks who actually manage to make it onto my mud.

Last edited by Milawe : 04-27-2008 at 12:56 AM.
Reason: Made the list bullet points for easier reading

First off.. I will admit, I do play Threshold, and have played it for a number of years off and on.

However, I can honestly say that your video was utterly.. disgusting.
You did not even begin to actually pay attention to the character creation Threshold had, or even give it a chance. You stopped before you even actually got started.

The 'approve me' is not a jump into game. It's a run through of making sure you have the basic idea of what the game is, and then you enter a brief writeup of the character you wish to create, or at least a overview of the general type of characters you usually enjoy playing. This is to ensure that you understand that the MUD is focused on RP.

After you get past that.. *then* you are allowed to create your character. Those 'stats' you saw.. really they are only there to measure that category to determine guild eligibility. Everything else.. skill base.. which you'd know if you had actually gone through with things, instead of half-assing it.

All the character creation things you have, are present in Threshold.. age. height.. weight... special features.. Okay, only difference is, to my knowledge you have to wait until you are in game to set up your full on full description.. which has the same requirements as yours does.

I actually went to your game, and looked around. I started making a character, up until the entering the BG, mainly because I was just taking a stroll through it myself. I must say, there are several things that I see as being a rather big no-no in my book. Mainly, providing a player with the appearance of a choice he/she can't make. Races you can't be right now.. hmm not exactly hard to take those, do some coding, and have them only displayed to the people who have the 'points' to play them. Then there's the part of choosing schools.. it says to use 'help school' to find out more.. then what.. no help?

The no help thing is *exactly* why there needs to be some ooc channels, and the player 'in the game' as fast as possible. That way they do have access to people who can help them, and discuss questions they may have.

Now you may be saying that I'm anti-RPI muds. Absolutely wrong. Take a look over at RPIMud. You will see that I am a member there, and have posted about the games. You honestly are the one that I mentioned over there that made me concerned to even be associated with the website/forum. Your elitist attitude is sickening... and I had to fight to keep from dying laughing where you pointed to RPIMuds as a definitive source of what an RPI mud is. None of the things you say are required are mentioned there.. in forums yes.. by a few.. but the main site, where it talks about who can join and all.. nope. Just a few things that are generally seen on them, but that the main intent is that it be a true RP focused game. Course I had to laugh harder still about the fact that the original owner of the Site, left it because of destructive attitudes like yours.

i also find it amusing that you have a video about your being called a 'bad player' and having been banned from Armageddon. You make claims about how you only had one account or didn't do something.. and then a few minutes later go on to say wait.. maybe you did.. can't remember and such. You admitted that you broke the rules there.. and then when you are trying out Threhsold, you break their rules.

Now I am all for things that enhance Roleplay. I am an avid roleplayer. I adore LARP.. because I can costume, I can actually act.. I can make my props.. I get hours.. and sometimes entire weekends of uninterrupted RP with no OOC. But those things that enhance roleplay are generally considered features... not a playstyle. Roleplaying is a playstyle.. Hack&Slash is a playstyle.. Questing is a playstyle.

Oh, another reason to have ooc channels. You even admitted in one of your videos that players *do* break character to share information like emails and IM's. WTF? Why the hubub about having no ooc channels when you do it without them? Provide the channels for those cases.. plus.. hey.. it is a powerful tools for building comraderie amongst all your players. Oh, wait, you calimed that as an actor it is hard for you to act with chatter milling about. Hmm you *do* realize that actors deal with chatter that breaks character *constantly*.. right? Director shouting orders.. giving advice.. lighting crew. OOC chatter is normal.. which.. oh wait.. you have admitted in one of your videos.

You really did a number on yourself with those videos. You just showed that you cannot hold to your stories about anything. Say one thing one moment, and then another the next. Oh, and I love the part of your parents coming in and pretty much thinking your nuts. Oh and.. for the cipes sake.. keep your shirt on.

Oh, I will admit that this is a bit of a rambling mess, but well, there was a lot to talk about, and got to it as I recalled it.

Edit: Oh, and don't say you didn't want to start this thing back up again. You knew what would happen when you made the video and then posted it.

Last edited by ShadowsDawn : 04-27-2008 at 02:18 AM.
Reason: to add a note

"RPI.... ....fighting tooth and nail to try and get us not to use it on TopMudSites"

Once again, this is proof you do not read other people's posts. I never said this, and I do not know anyone who did. You are perfectly free to use the term RPI, but due to its incredibly generic nature, so are other people. If you want exclusive control over a term, proper nouns and specific terminology are better.

I will let people imagine for themselves why are you totally unable to grasp this very simple concept.

Quote:

"I'm not even going to play his mud because I'd probably die."

LOL! Emo much?

Quote:

"I don't get it. I didn't really have to do anything. It doesn't make any sense."

You find a clean, easy to use interface confusing? That explains a lot.

Quote:

"I'm just going to quit now, because I don't want to cause Threshold any further embarassment. I think I got my point across."

I think what you mean is you don't want to give us any more good PR.

I really appreciate you making this nice video that shows how easy it is to use the Threshold character creation interface. That version of character creation was written in 2004 (though it has received minor tweaks here and there over time). I am a perfectionist and I am intensely critical of my own work. I frequently wish I could find time to write a new creation system from scratch. I often worry it is not easy and user friendly enough. Thank you for demonstrating that it is still quite easy to use - even by someone who is doing everything he can to make it look as bad as possible.

Would you send me a copy of your video so I can use it for promotional purposes?

Quote:

"I can't login to Armageddon because I am banned."

I am so shocked!

Quote:

"Races. I only have 6, and then 3 that are restricted to PCs. I believe Threshold had like twenty."

So you have 9 races. Threshold has 10 races. Your point? Is 9 the magic number? Is this like the Priest in Monty Python's Holy Grail?

BROTHER: "And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou make they mud. Then, shalt thou create nine races, no more, no less. Nine shalt be the number thou shalt create, and the number of the creating shalt be nine. Ten shalt thou not create, nor either create thou eight, excepting that thou then proceed to nine. Eleven is right out. Once the number nine, being the ninth number, be reached, then release thou thy Holy RPI of Antioch towards thy foes, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff them and steal their players.'"

Quote:

"You don't get to pick your age because people probably didn't keep track of how old they were."

Huh? People have been keeping track of this for thousands of years. You can read about it in the Old Testament. Is Dark Sun pre-speech and pre-mathematics? Like, Cro-magnons?

Do you read books or study history at all? Should you even be making or commenting on muds if your understanding of basic history is this flawed?

I think it is strange that of all the features of your mud you could have demonstrated, this is what you chose. Is this the most unique and "interesting" feature that sets your mud apart from others? Hiding character age? REALLY? That's it? That's your USP? I find that perplexing.

Quote:

"You don't just create a name, pick a race, and type approve me."

Well, obviously you cut short your creation on Threshold specifically so you could avoid all the other steps. I find it amusing and impossibly coincidental that you stopped RIGHT before the step where you have to write a character outline and get it approved before you can enter the game. You started mumbling under your breath and quickly said something to the effect of: "oh yeah um, we'll stop right now... yeah, that's the ticket!"

After that, you would do things like create your description, eye color, hair color, and pick your general height and weight category (for example: very short, short, average, tall, very tall... sound familiar?). Then you could establish the background heritage for your character, which represents your character's childhood, upbringing, etc.

And those are the parts that determine your short description. So when you are in a room, someone sees "Male elf with dark brown hair" not "Oguma."

In other words, the creation process is actually quite detailed and addresses a lot of role play oriented features. But you deliberately and conveniently stopped before those steps.

Quote:

"... (quoting a post by Threshold)'For the sake of brevity'. As you can see he is using big words to try and confuse us here."

You think brevity is a big word and claim to play on role play heavy games?

In competitive gymnastics in the US, kids are specifically divided up by level. They literally call it levels. I believe the levels are 1 through 10. To attain different levels, you have to be able to perform certain types of gymnastic maneuvers. So one is literally a "level 8 gymnast", and they refer to themselves in such a manner. This method of classification goes all the way up to competing for the National team.

I have never said level systems are the best or only way to do things. But to claim the concept of levels are "OOC" is simply ignorant of reality. But hey, don't let facts get in the way of your rant.

--------------------------------------------------

Delerak, you are a sad, sad, sad, hilarious man.

I have never seen a more unintentionally hilarious backfire of a flame attempt. If I were not the target of this video, I would think this was an elaborate scam to give Threshold more publicity and positive press. Please do not EVER, EVER, EVER take that video down.

As funny as this failed flame was, absolutely nothing touches the awesomeness of your other videos, like this one:

I am not sure what my favorite part was.... It is hard to decide between you doing pushups, your random lack of a shirt in the final 30 seconds, or when you parents walk in to ask you to do some kind of chore, ask you what you are doing, and you have to lie to them and say you are doing an interview with Microsoft. Hahahahahahaha. Ok, its the parents coming it. That is just awesome.

Most of the videos aren't meant to get my point across, a lot of you have failed to realize that they're supposed to be funny/spoof videos. It's hard enough to get your point across on a forums, trying to do it in a video is 10 times harder, if you think you can do better, please go ahead. The videos aren't meant to be taken seriously, I posted the link hoping to alleviate some of the seriousness behind RPI's but yet again I've failed it seems to even do that, with what is blatantly not a collection of serious thoughts at all. Every single video from start to finish is improvisation, not a thing is written down or collected as a whole thought-- which is the whole point.

I mean come on, in the middle of the videos I even put the dumbest stuff (the world of warcraft bit) that has nothing to do with the video at all. If that's not enough to prove that the videos are not meant to be taken serious I don't know what is.

I really wish people didn't take things so serious, although at least SOME people on these forums did laugh at them, which is the POINT of the videos.

But whatever, people can believe whatever they want, if I felt the need to do a collection of videos that are actually thougthful and not a satire towards something I would probably take an hour or two, write down my points, collect data, cite references and then do a video about 1 subject instead of having a bunch of stuff rolled into one video.

Dude, don't worry. We were all laughing uproariously. Unintentional comedy is still comedy, and is still entertaining.

I watched a total crap movie last night (No Country for Old Men.... one of the worst movies I have seen in at least a year), and then sat down to the computer and discovered your videos. Your videos washed away all the bitterness over wasting 2 hours on that movie and replaced it with a good hour of laugh out loud entertainment.

Dude, don't worry. We were all laughing uproariously. Unintentional comedy is still comedy, and is still entertaining.

I watched a total crap movie last night (No Country for Old Men.... one of the worst movies I have seen in at least a year), and then sat down to the computer and discovered your videos. Your videos washed away all the bitterness over wasting 2 hours on that movie and replaced it with a good hour of laugh out loud entertainment.

I probably wasn't laughing for the reasons you intended though.

As long as you're laughing I honestly don't care. They're not meant to be taken seriously. If you didn't notice that within the first 2 minutes of every video I have (except for the RPI viewpoint one) then you're daft. If you think you can do better at satiring the subject of RPI's vs non-RPI's go right ahead. I'm waiting to see your comedic genius.

I have to go for a bit, but when I get back I'll try to do another SPECIAL video just for you guys.

That sounds like the Jon Stewart (or any "political comedian" for that matter) dodge:

Step 1: Attack something or someone - the more bitter and vitriolic the attack the better.

Step 2: If critical praise is received, puff up your chest and act like you are brilliant.

Step 3: If criticism is received, or if anyone points out glaring flaws in the attack's "logic", say: "Hey, I'm a comedian, I'm trying to be funny, its a joke."

Generally, the real joke is the person using this dodge.

No Delerak, your intent was very clear and your bitterness was even clearer. In the two videos linked here already, you were trying to make attacks and they blew up in your face. The parts that were funny were the unintentional comedy (like your parents walking in to tell you to do some chores, and you had to lie to them about being in an interview with Microsoft). The parts where you were trying to be funny (like the WoW teamspeak part, or the pushups) were just kinda weird and made the viewer embarrassed for you.

I've been following this conversation for a while, and have remained silent for the most part. I spoke up only when I just couldn't keep from saying something anymore.

Your video on Threshold was one such incident. I had watched the others.. had a good laugh at your expense and moved on. But the half-assed comparison between your game and Thresholds. Yeah, that I'm going to take offense to, and call someone out on.. and then well.. all the stuff that had annoyed me from this thread came out.

Oh btw... I wasn't flaming you as a Threshold player. Yes I play the game.. have been for approaching 9 years now.. but like I've said, I play it off and on but it is still the only mud I really do play. I posted because I personally, as a game designer, took offense to it. Didn't matter what game you used for this, I would have gone, looked at them and then likely have responded in the same exact way.

Honestly, satire or not, your videos were in the general tone I've seen come from you through this whole thing, so they realy just did little more than serve as a showcase to thoroughly discredit you in every possible way for me.

That sounds like the Jon Stewart (or any "political comedian" for that matter) dodge:

Step 1: Attack something or someone - the more bitter and vitriolic the attack the better.

Step 2: If critical praise is received, puff up your chest and act like you are brilliant.

Step 3: If criticism is received, or if anyone points out glaring flaws in the attack's "logic", say: "Hey, I'm a comedian, I'm trying to be funny, its a joke."

Generally, the real joke is the person using this dodge.

No Delerak, your intent was very clear and your bitterness was even clearer. In the two videos linked here already, you were trying to make attacks and they blew up in your face. The parts that were funny were the unintentional comedy (like your parents walking in to tell you to do some chores, and you had to lie to them about being in an interview with Microsoft). The parts where you were trying to be funny (like the WoW teamspeak part, or the pushups) were just kinda weird and made the viewer embarrassed for you.

But by all means, keep making videos.

If I had more time to respond I would, but I'm just checking in. If you fail to realize that I can cut any part of the videos then I may as well just give up right here and now.

I left it in because it was intentional. I'm not going to go over my videos for people who fail to realize what's even going on in them.